1. Field
The present invention relates to electric vehicles such as three-wheeled vehicles and more particularly to electric vehicles which run by driving a pair of left and right rear wheels by the driving power of a motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, there have been known saddle-ride type electric three-wheeled vehicles in which a front fork attached to the forward side of a body frame supports a front wheel and a rear body vertically swingable and transversely tiltable with respect to the body frame is attached on the rearward side of the body frame and a pair of left and right rear wheels driven by a motor are supported on the rear body.
Patent Literature 1 (JP-A No. Hei5-161221) discloses an electric three-wheeled vehicle with a structure (type 1) in which a stepped variable transmission comprised of gear pairs attached to a main shaft and a counter shaft is provided between a motor output shaft and a rear wheel axle, and an electric three-wheeled vehicle with a structure (type 2) in which a belt converter type continuously variable transmission is provided between a motor output shaft and a rear wheel axle.
However, the technology described in Patent Literature 1 has a problem that in the type 1 electric three-wheeled vehicle, the motor output shaft oriented along the vehicle transverse direction and the main shaft supporting a plurality of speed change gears are located on the same axis and thus the dimension of the housing for housing them in the vehicle transverse direction must be larger. It also has a problem that in the type 2 electric three-wheeled vehicle, the driving pulley and driven pulley of the continuously variable transmission must be spaced from each other and thus the dimension of the housing for housing them in the vehicle longitudinal direction must be larger, which suggests that in both types, there is still room to improve the approach to reducing the size of the power unit including the motor and drive system.